Helping Hands
by OrchisAilsa
Summary: Ten is healing Rose's injured leg, and she finds herself in quite a predicament. A "how it could have happened" story, involving a sexy first or two for my favorite star-crossed pair. Set mid-series 2, in my mind... sometime before The Impossible Planet (but it doesn't reference any episodes). Canon-compatible, I believe.


As he helped her out of her ruined jeans, Rose laid back on the exam table, letting loose a string of expletives that she could see impressed the Doctor, coming from the mouth of one barely twenty years old.

Still. She felt that the situation merited it. Four, massive, reptilian claw marks streaked the inside of her right thigh, and they were deep enough that they'd sliced clean through the skin and straight down into the meat of her muscle. She struggled to get out of her trousers to give the doctor access to her leg so he could stop the bleeding. FUCK, did it hurt. It actually hurt enough that she wasn't even preoccupied with the idea of being half-naked in front of him.

"Alright then," the Doctor said in his most businesslike voice, tossing aside the sodden denim and pulling out his sonic screwdriver. "Let's knit you up, then."

He'd programmed the screwdriver to secure the DNA-mimicking sutures in her leg as he scanned and stimulated the tissue with a dermal regenerator, coaxing the cells to realign as he went, dramatically reducing her healing time from that of an injury treated with normal stitches. Whatever that meant.

Whimpering in pain, Rose laid back and tried to take deep breaths as he healed her.

The gentle, familiar hum of the screwdriver distracted Rose as it helped knit her back together. It buzzed against the skin of her thigh, soothing the burn and pulsing, it seemed, in time with the TARDIS itself, soon lulling her into a calm, if not comfortable, place.

Before too much time had passed, she could feel the pain was getting better, the throbbing slowly but steadily subsiding. Muscles were coming back together as the Doctor worked with his singular focus on fixing the problem and healing her wounds.

It wasn't her first injury since she'd been on the TARDIS, but it must have been one of the worst. The Doctor never babied her as much as he had just now, helping her to the medical room, begging the ship to make the room closer, this time, please. As the shooting white pain dulled to a jaw clenching burn, Rose saw his shoulders visibly relax, and wondered how close a call that had actually been.

He looked up, and must have seen the distress on her face.

"You'll be good as new, Rose Tyler. Not to worry. Trust me... I'm a doctor, you know."

With that he winked and gave her a warm, reassuring smile she couldn't help but return, despite the pain (which had now dulled to an even more manageable level). She laid back and tried her best to breathe steadily and relax. She was in good hands.

As the Doctor continued his work, though, and the pain continued to lessen, Rose gradually found herself plagued with an entirely different set of worries.

Adrenaline still coursed through her from the near-death experience. She was humming with energy that had nowhere to go, now that she was done escaping. And the slow, relentless buzzing of the sonic screwdriver on her upper thighs, which had been so comforting moments earlier, was still stimulating, to be sure, but now felt somehow more sensual, causing her skin to tingle in ways that made her think of... certain other buzzing objects, that she preferred to keep hidden in her sock drawer. These vibrations, combined with the cool pressure of the Doctor's steadying hand on her belly, were actually becoming somewhat arousing.

Rose was mortified. She told herself to calm down.

_The Doctor isn't like that, you idiot,_ she chastised herself. _He's not trying to turn you on, he is trying to heal you. You're being a pervert._

She knew, from some basic research confirmed by a conversation she'd once had with Jack, Time Lords had typically discouraged all types of physical, sexual contact, dismissed sex as primitive and barbaric, and had opted for various cerebral and telepathic (less messy and animalistic) ways of expressing love and devotion. There was, therefore, not much of a chance at all that the Doctor was turning her on intentionally. But Rose's body didn't seem to care about all that. All it cared about was the warm, distracting vibrations on her upper, inner thigh and the Doctor's cool, dexterous hand brushing close to the top of her pubic bone as he worked, totally unaware of his effect on her.

Rose's predicament caused feelings to well up inside her that she normally did a much better job of keeping under wraps. She was desperately attracted to him, and she thought he might fancy her as well, in his own way. But she feared that he would react poorly to the carnal nature of attraction, and she worried that if he ever found out, he would make her leave him and go back to her mother and Powell Estates, so she had kept her attraction tightly checked, and told herself every day that he'd given her both his friendship, and all of time and space. Surely that was enough.

Now, though, as emotionally raw as she was after her terrifying ordeal, the floodgates to her feelings had opened. All of a sudden, she couldn't stop thinking about his unruly hair, sinewy muscles, and the puckish smile he wore when they were about to be in boat-loads of trouble. She truly didn't really care, most days, that their relationship was platonic, but at times like this, she desperately wished he returned her regard, or at least that she had more occasions between adventures to relieve some of the built up tensions with her own hands...

The arousal in her body was continuing to build, the fire stoked by her own imagination. It was growing increasingly hard to hold still. She needed him to stop touching her before she embarrassed herself.

"Doctor..." she said with a dry throat, trying her best to sound strong and reasonable,"I'm better now. You can stop."

"Don't be ridiculous," the Doctor said, dismissively, looking at her over his specs. "If I stop now, you will take at least two days to heal. This procedure reduces the time to a half hour."

"Doctor-"

"Rose, lie down. Let me fix you. I'm the reason that overgrown iguana got you in the first place. I want to make this better."

He looked so upset and guilty about her injury that she couldn't tell him no. Besides... If she was honest... She didn't actually want him to stop touching her. Wrong or not, she liked having him close, and what he was doing felt incredible.

Unable to argue, she obeyed, lying back and trying with all her might to lay still and keep herself from writhing under him. Inevitably, though, despite her best efforts, a soft, breathy whimper eventually escaped her, loud enough to be heard over the relentless hum of the vibrations.

"Rose?" the Doctor asked with concern, "Are you okay? This isn't supposed to hurt."

Her whole body went rigid as he turned to look at her face.

_Fuck_.

Lying had never been something she could do to him. And she could never let him think he'd hurt her. Not after what had just taken place on the planet. So, in the end, despite her embarrassment, she pursed her lips, cheeks flushing pink with shame and arousal, and whispered softly, "Doesn't hurt."

He met her eyes, inquisitive, then gazed at his hands, still settled on her pelvis. After an agonizing moment of silence, he flushed himself as flustered comprehension washed over his features.

He found her pulse, and she knew it was racing. He breathed deeply, and she flushed with embarrassment, knowing he could smell her. He looked her over from head to toe, taking in her state: dilated pupils, shallow breathing, elevated temperature. Then at great length, he replied, "Ah."

She knit her brow and prepared herself for the inevitable, _Now, Rose, you silly ape. You know Time Lords don't do anything like that. We evolved out of it centuries ago. High time you did too..._

But the admonishment never came. The tense silence remained, Rose on the table with her eyes closed, the Doctor's hands totally still, his right hand on her thigh, the fingertips of his left hand almost, just almost, brushing the edge of her knickers.

After a moment Rose forced herself to turn her head and meet his eyes. He'd stopped the buzzing of the sonic screwdriver but his touch, his sheer proximity, still threatened to drive her insane. It had been months since anyone had touched her intimately...

She knew she was blushing, hard, when she met his fathomless brown gaze.

"Sorry..." she muttered, feeling guilty and embarrassed.

"Why?" he asked, legitimately curious, voice as mild and neutral as if she had just told him she didn't really care for strawberry ice cream.

Surely he couldn't be serious.

"I.. Ah... Come on, Doctor I think its sort of obvious. Isn't it? Not very appropriate, this."

He looked at her and smiled awkwardly. His warmth gave her courage to keep speaking.

"I know... About Time Lords. I know you don't... touch, like we do. Jack told me all about it, see. The telepathic connections, how biology is just too messy for you lot. But.. I'm no Time Lord, and what you're doin' there... I'm having a hard time keeping it professional. It's been a long time... "

"I still don't understand why you need to be sorry." His confusion was genuine. The look of concern in his thoughtful brown eyes, and the way his lips were just slightly parted, made her heart ache and sent another hot jolt of desire into her belly. She was suddenly extremely aware that he hadn't finished what he'd started.

He was speaking again.

"...healthy young human woman, just entering her sexual prime," she flushed darker to hear the word 'sexual' fall from his lips. "Your hormone levels are highly variable. Stress, adrenaline, and so forth only exacerbate the issue. And-" he pressed lightly on her abdomen with his cool palm, forcing a helpless moan from her lips, "you're ovulating..."

"How can you even tell-"

"...so it's only natural that you would be in need of some sort of... relief... from the tension."

He smiled at her again, and she might have been imagining it, but she thought she saw a spark of mischief in his eyes. The glimmer stoked the fire of her arousal. She needed to get out of that room.

"Right..." she sighed. "Natural. That's me." she started to sit and swing her legs over the side of the table. The pain in her inner thigh pinched enough to make her wince, but did not hurt too much to walk anymore.

"Rose, I'm still not done with your leg."

"I told you Doctor. You can't keep doing that to me. I'm going to go mad."

"Because it arouses you."

She hung her head in shame. "Yes."

"And where will you go now?"

Seriously?

"I dunno," she mumbled. "Maybe to shower..."

"To masturbate."

Would he not leave her alone? She hadn't thought she could be more embarrassed.

"What's it matter to you?"

He looked confused and unhappy as she tested her injured leg to see how it could bear her weight. She winced, and he blocked her way to the door.

"Just to be clear. You're leaving here with an injured leg because if you stay you might have an orgasm. But you're leaving here to go masturbate because you desperately need to have an orgasm."

She nodded, unable to speak.

"Would it not make more sense to stay here, then?" he asked, in an infuriatingly reasonable tone, "Where you can have your orgasm as you like, and I can still heal your injuries?"

Jesus. Did he have any idea what he was asking? How thick was he? What the hell was she supposed to say to that?

"I... Doctor, you know that is a very personal thing, for humans..."

"Rose, I know that," he started, exasperated. And then his expression changed, suddenly serious and a little tiny bit sad, as he said, "And we're not personal like that, I suppose. So, you wouldn't want an orgasm if I was the one who gave it to you?"

He had not just asked her that. No way.

He looked at her, strangely uncertain, waiting.

"Doctor," she faltered, unsure of how to explain without having to compound her embarrassment with a confession of love, "that's not it. I mean, I... It's not so, ya know, clinical... for me. If someone does that for you... with you... it's supposed to be... well... special. Not a side effect of a medical treatment."

"Not even because I'm your doctor?" he asked, gesturing at her thigh.

"Especially because you're My Doctor," she replied, placing a palm against her heart, trying to will him to understand the depth of emotion she put into those two simple words.

For the longest moment of her life she waited for him to speak. Her lower body still almost painfully aroused, her heart in her throat, steeling itself against the pain she feared it would soon be feeling.

He nodded then, looking at her for a long moment with his intense brown eyes. He seemed to be weighing a big decision, like the fate of a planet or a complicated battle strategy.

"And..." he finally spoke, urgently, barely above a whisper taking one single step towards her. "If it were as you say. If it were special... would you want an orgasm from me, then?"

Rose's heart threatened to beat out of her chest. But she had come this far, and she was not a coward. She held his penetrating gaze as she replied, "More than I have ever wanted anything, in my whole life."

The doctor inhaled sharply at her reply. He took another step towards her as he spoke his next words, bringing him close enough for her to reach out and touch him.

"Rose Tyler, you are more than special. You met me at one of the darkest times in my entire life, and taught me how to feel again. There is nothing clincial or impersonal about that, i assure you. If you need to leave right now, I understand. I won't stop you. I am just an old, broken man and you deserve much better. If you're really sure you need to go, I won't stop you... But i hope you will stay, because if there is ever something wrong in your life, I want to help you fix it. It's all i have to offer... To try and help you even one iota as much as you've helped me."

Her heart leaped into her throat, and her heart pounded.

"Doctor, I know Time Lords don't-"

He made a dismissive gesture and took another small step towards her.

"I cant stand when you're injured... And I hate knowing you're tense and uncomfortable, and... and... and I know what Time Lords are supposed to do, but I've never been so good at behaving like a proper Time Lord, have I? And you're far from any old human. You're... You. I want to be there for you, and Rose... I..I... I can't even tell you why, and i have no idea why it is so vitally important, but, just right now, I feel at this moment like I'm going to go absolutely mad if I have to imagine you touching yourself when i could be touching you, and I can't see the look on your face when you cum."

Rose stared at him then, dumbfounded and speechless, mouth agape. he stared back at her, clearly taken off guard by the force of his own emotions. Did he even realize what he was doing to her?

"Doctor," she whispered.

He silenced her with two fingers against her lips.

"Lie down?" he asked, imploring her with his eyes to comply.

Afraid to break this spell, she nodded in silence. Feeling as though she was underwater, she climbed back up on the table and tried to lay back and tried to relax. Relaxing was easier said than done, though. If she'd felt turned on before, it was nothing compared to the hot desire she now felt coursing through her veins.

Much to her frustration, though, the Doctor didnt touch her in any of the places she most craved. He and his screwdriver simply began once more to heal her wound, the relentless buzzing once again driving her out of her mind

She squirmed her hips impatiently, and then squeaked in indignation as she was rewarded with a sharp slap to her uninjured thigh.

"I told you, we are fixing your leg first. Stop whining an hold still." his voice sounded completely unaffected, and she would have been annoyed at his detachment if she hadn't noticed the tremor in his fingers as she worked.

She did hold still, mostly because he was holding her hips down with his left arm, but she did not stop whining, trying her best to distract him from his task with little gasping, mewling noises that would have cracked a lesser man. The Doctor, however, was nothing if not devoted to his projects, and ignored her protests completely. She was almost angry at him by the time he finished.

"There now, all better."

"And yet, so much worse," she bantered breathlessly.

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to center himself. He stroked a light hand over her bare thighs, her arm, which was covered in goose bumps, and her tangled hair.

"Rose Tyler, you are so bloody sexy I just can't keep my hands off you," he whispered.

"I dunno. You've been doing far too good a job of that for my tastes. Could do with a little more failure."

He laughed in earnest before meeting her eyes with a look that clearly said, _challenge accepted._

Slowly, tentatively, he began to massage her body. She rolled her hips towards his touch, but every time she did he pulled away. His flat refusal to touch any of her erogenous made all of the mundane parts of her rise to the occasion, and she found that each stroke of his hand against her abdomen caused her to whimper as though he were caressing one of her tight, sensitive nipples.

"You're rather good at that, you know," she stammered. He smirked in response.

"Come now, Rose," he said in the voice he always reserved for when she was being particularly thick. "Sure, it's extreeeemely unseemly for a Time Lord to concern himself with such base activities. Queen Victoria herself was less of a prude than any Galifreyan. And I've never been one to think about it hours a day like you insatiable humans, no. But, really. You know me. Do you honestly think I'm such a stick in the mud that I've made it to 900 years without being 'unseemly' at least once or twice?"

He winked at her then, looking her over appreciatively in a way shed never experienced before, in a way that made her blush.

"You never mentioned..."

"Well, of course not. It's a bit rude to discuss, where I come from. Honestly, the whole mess is not so important to me. With Time Lords, mental and emotional intimacy is much more fulfilling. But, Rose Tyler, I am still a man. And you are positively oozing pheremones. So it seems you are going to have your way. But if we are going to do this your way, we are going to do it properly. So lie back, you fantastic creature. And relax. "

And then he pressed gentley on her shoulder until she was yet again reclined on the medical table before leaning over to take one of her hands in each of his, holding her arms down by her shoulders as he went to brush her warm, soft lips with his own. Not quite touching. Not quite.

"It is customary, isn't it, to begin with a kiss?" he spoke the words against her mouth, hovering so he was barely touching, teasing her with the promise of everything she was aching for. Mad with the smell of him, Rose arched against him, rolling her hips and stretching to brush her breasts against his chest.

"I'll take that as a yes," the Doctor whispered as he claimed her mouth with his.

Her brain melted the moment his lips touched hers. She had always imagined it would be a little awkward, kissing the doctor. She wasn't prepared for the quiet, deliberate self assurance he displayed as he brushed his lips against hers again, again, again. She leaned up towards him, desperate to deepen the embrace, but his deceptively strong, wiry arms held her right against the cold metal of the table, refused to relinquish even a tiny bit of control. Rose whimpered in desperation as he nipped softly at her throat, then her collarbone, before pulling back to meet her fevered gaze. Releasing her arms, he pulled the hem of her shirt up and ran cool, nimble fingers over her exposed belly and along the edge of her knickers.

"Magnificent," he muttered as she moaned softly, licking his lips as he ran one finger along her sex, which was soaking through the thin cloth in her eagerness.

"Doctor..." she groaned, "please..."

"Please?" he asked, smiling slowly, without stopping the slow movement of his hand. "Please what? I thought this is what you wanted."

"Please, more," she whispered, desperate, and tried to arch her back to press against his hand.

His smile grew broader and he nipped at her lip with his teeth. "Greedy," he accused her.

She opened her mouth to protest, but never uttered a word, because in that moment the doctor swept her knickers to the side and plunged two cool, long fingers deep inside of her in a single motion. She cried out and convulsed against him. His fingers worked slowly, so slowly inside of her, back and forth, as the heel of his hand pressed against her pubic bone, the flesh warmed by contact with her. Higher and higher he stoked the flames within her, driving her frantically higher and higher towards a peak she could almost taste.

"Rose Tyler, he breathed her name, eyes as dark and deep as space itself, "you have no idea what you do to me. You make me forget myself. You turn me into a savage. You could turn me into a rutting beast if I gave you half a chance. Nine hundred years of control, you've reduced to nothing. "

"Kiss me." she demanded breathlessly, reaching up to bury one hand in his gorgeous hair as the other came up to rest against his chest, where the pounding of his hearts turned his impassioned words into reality.

With a gasped intake of breath at her touch he complied, allowing her to pull his head down to meet her lips, where she poured the heart and soul of her passion, desire and love into that kiss.

When he finally pulled back, seconds or hours later, she trembled under him, the ripples of passion beginning to wash over her in pulsing waves. The Doctor's fingers moved still within her. His other hand wandered over her belly, shoulders, chest and throat, gently caressing and stoping every so often to pinch a tender nipple. She was panting, squirming, groaning.

"What do you need, Rose?" he asked softly, close to her ear.

"You. More of you. Just... you," she gasped.

He kissed her throat. "You have me, Rose Tyler," he paused and nibbled a nipple through her clothes, "and I have you."

He slid down and kissed her belly, below her navel, and hummed appreciatively against her skin as she moaned.

"Rose," he said softly, but firmly, "I want you to come for me. Right. Now."

She writhed at his voice, the most unbelievably sexy sound in a dozen galaxies, and cried out as he raked his nails lightly down her legs. And then he bowed his head to kiss her clitoris softly, flicking his tongue around the swollen nub, sighing softly against her flesh as his fingers inside her continued their clever work.

It was Rose's undoing. She sobbed as she came, awash in sensation and emotion, riding wave after wave of ecstasy, overflowing with adoration of the Doctor, and disbelief that this was happening, and pure, joyful, release, until she was trembling all over and she could barely feel her toes.

When she came back to herself, her body felt languid and sated. Stretching, she opened her eyes, gazing up into the Doctor's face. The love and wonder in his expression took her breath away.

"That was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen..." he murmured. "Do you feel better?"

"I am perfect," she replied, and her voice sounded like a purr in her own ears. She took in the sight of him, disheveled with his tie pulled loose and his coat and jacket discarded, and she thought she had never seen anything as gorgeous in her entire life. "I have never been more perfect."

Glancing down, she saw the evidence of his own arousal, hard against the front of his trousers. She flushed again as a fresh wave of lust washed over her, and she reached an arm towards his fly, as though hypnotized. Her mouth actually watered.

The Doctor intercepted her hand with both of his own, bringing it to his lips, kissing her palm reverently.

"Let's take this a bit slowly, shall we?" he whispered uncertainly, and she saw an all-too-familiar caution and wariness creep into the edges of his expression, cooling his gaze just a little. "It's... Been quite a long while, for me."

And her heart almost broke again, as he met her eyes. So lonely, her Time Lord, the last of his kind, reluctant to open up to her despite her devotion, because no matter how much she loved or how determined she was to stay with him, age and time would steal her eventually. She would leave him. He would lose her. Of this, he was certain. Tears welled up in her eyes again.

"We can take this as slow as you want," she whispered, sitting up on the exam table and reaching to card her free hand through his tousled hair as she flashed him a warm, loving smile. "As slow as you need."

He gathered her to him once more, pulling her against his chest and capturing her lips in one more fevered, desperate kiss. His hands tangled against her scalp, and she thought she felt the heat of a tear slide over her cheek, but she couldn't have told you whether it was his or hers.

"My Rose..." he whispered into her hair, when he finally had to let her breathe.

"Yours," she agreed, wrapping her arms around him and breathing in his scent as she pressed her face into the hollow of his neck. "All of me, yours. And you're my Doctor."

He looked at her and pushed her hair out of her face, his expression both adoring and haunted as he accepted her words as truth. How terrifying, for him, to feel so much for a creature so fragile and mortal.

"Let's find you some new trousers, shall we?" he asked suddenly, straightening his tie and extending his hand.

"It is a bit drafty in here," she agreed, accepting his hand and giving it a squeeze.

_Everything just changed_, she thought to herself, as she stood. Except, really... she didn't feel different. He was the Doctor, and she was Rose, and she loved him... and she thought he just might love her too.

No. Nothing had changed at all.

And off they walked to the wardrobe, Rose and the Doctor hand in hand. As they should be.


End file.
